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These photos, of the house in which I lived the past year, were taken as an exploration of the concept of “constructed landscape.” Taking these pictures was an interesting experience for me. At the time, I had already signed the lease for a new apartment, so the project, which had started as a school assignment, also became a last chance documenting of a place I was about to leave. It also gave me a chance to explore a new way of photographing – seeing a landscape as a unique space in time impacted and brought about by various forces (people in this case) – that has informed the way I look at the world in the time since. The images are scans from 4×5 negatives.

The driveway: often filled with cars, this is a rare moment of emptiness

The Living Room: Yapes’ record collection on the left, Christie’s, Enrico’s, and mine all in the box to the right; A fake Christmas tree; various found photographs on the walls.

The Living Room: Our horribly outdated world map; a disco ball; clocks showing the times in Manilla, for Jerico, and Dublin, for Christie (with Pnom Penh for Darin and “U.S.A.” for everyone else outside the frame); Yapes’ mandolin, banjo, and DVD collection; and assorted books on witchcraft, U.F.O.s and the black arts.

The view from the living room windows

Jerico’s Room: Green paint; Filipino Flag; Power Rangers pillowcase; little umbrella men on the walls.

Yapes’ Room: bare mattress with dinosaur blanket and Star Wars pillow. Most of his stuff was in the living room.

Darin’s Room: Giraffe; an HDTV, the object of many nights’ contemplation; along with the bottles leftover from the contemplating the night before.

Christie’s and my room: Tibetan prayer flags; a houseplant found on the side of the road; a fish painting by Devon; Christie’s beloved spiderman pillow, now replaced.

Enrico’s Room: Literary Classics next to books by Paris Hilton and Sarah Jessica Parker; hamster Richard Parker’s cage.

Eric Dale’s Room: currently converted into a “game room” to avoid suspicion from the landlord, who didn’t exactly tell us we could have someone live in the basement.

Storage Room: Various keyboards and tv sets; the side panel from a Pillsbury ice cream freezer.

Our Underground Garden: a lighting setup for sprouting seeds, built by Jerico.

The mysteriously barricaded kitchen door; an old bike that nobody ever rode.

The sky reflected in the windows of Enrico’s bedroom.

Our Garden: one box recently planted with herbs, the other ready for tomatoes.

The trash heap behind the house

The Basement door, with a mysterious glitter thing we found.